"On Sept. 25, U.S. District Judge Royce Lamberth ordered the Interior Department to account for all individual Indian assets held in trust since 1887. This is a tough charge because the trustee has lost so many of the records; it requires the expensive business of forensic accounting.

Enter the Congress. Eager to "save" the Treasury the expense of accounting for Indians' money, a rider was added to the Interior Department's budget preventing the spending of any money to implement that court order.

But when something is enacted this foul in Congress, no member wants to claim credit. No one is saying, "Hey, look, I pushed through a bill to steal money from the Indians!""